In recent years, the use of the World Wide Web (WWW) has been rapidly growing. In use of the Web, a client computer user connects to a Web site on a server and requests that the server download and display Web pages on the client computer. In response to the request, the server sends to the client computer graphic files, usually in Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML), which include media elements (pictures, animations, texts, sound), scripts of instructions to be performed by an Internet browser program running on the computer, and in some cases executable software code, e.g., Java code.
The number of companies, organizations and individuals who have Web home pages is rapidly growing. Companies feel the need to prepare interesting Web sites and Web advertisements in order to attract customers and maintain their standing in the market. Furthermore, many individuals prepare Web pages to convey information in graphical and/or animation formats to their friends and family.
Existing tools for preparing Web pages, such as Dreamweaver, produced by Macromedia, are relatively complex. A small company, organization or home user does not need such tools and in many cases does not know how to take advantage of their sophisticated features. There are on-line services for preparing Web pages, such as the GeoBuilder program offered by Geocities. Other Web sites include programs that aid users in adding features to their Web pages. However, these sites offer the user only limited flexibility, and do not generally support sophisticated features such as Java-based animation.
On-line greeting card companies allow users to select a greeting card and add and/or change text inscriptions associated with the card. Some of these greeting cards include animation sequences, but the animation sequences are generally fixed and cannot be substantially altered by the user.
The above-mentioned Geocities Web site allows a user to prepare a Web page component which includes animation. However, in order to prepare such Web page components and in order to view such components, normal HTML and Java tools are not sufficient, and the user must download a proprietary software client.
Web page components may be programmed to respond differently to different users and/or at different times. For example, an Internet banner prepared by Doubleclick for inclusion in a Web page selects different advertisements to display according to input received from or about a user viewing the Web page, indicative of the user's interests or demographic factors. As another example, the IBM Patent Server Web page, allows a user to subscribe to a patent service and receive the service between certain selected hours on the user's local time.